Chapter One seems to me especially rich. It serves to pull the reader in with common ideals to Ishmael. Even in today’s modern world of high-tech cruise ships, the call to the sea as a simple sailor plays to one’s heart.

When I’ve cruised in the Caribbean, a most thrilling part to me has been the loss of sight of land. No bills. No phone calls. No emails. It’s as if I might as well be on another planet. On three-masted Windjammer ships, especially, where passengers are able to leave being a passenger behind and participate in the raising and lowering of sails, the call to the sea is complete.

Ishmael calls it “a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship [are] now out of sight of land.” He adds, “meditation and water are wedded forever.” I have felt this!

When I labored for a major container ship corporation, in which containers are shipped worldwide by truck, rail and ship, I served as a customer service representative. With emails coming in continuously, phone calls ringing continuously and managers thumping me on the shoulder with urgent requests, no sun set with all the day’s work complete.

Ishmael wisely advises: “Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that . . . however the old sea-captains may order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.”

When I’ve yearned for a more adventurous and romantic life, I can take to heart Ishmael’s shared pain: “I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”

After reading the first chapter of Moby-Dick, I am in for the full journey!

We are excessively pleased that you have informed us that you will send Damon to Pandara, to seduce her six women. . . .

. . . we have taken precautions against Damon and Lilith. Unfortunately, we had to introduce suspicion into that vast paradise. We should have preferred that entire innocence prevail, but one remembers that Our Father set, in the midst of Eden, a Forbidden Tree. Suspicion, entering into Pandara, will awaken the power of free will, and a healthy mistrust.

. . . I appeared to the wives of Pandara, the innocent treasures!–and informed them that they were with child, which pleased them mightily. However, I mourned . . . A beautiful female demon, one Lilith, who destroyed the souls of millions upon millions of other men, would soon enter the azure light of their planet to seduce their husbands and lead their husbands into unspeakable pleasures and lust, thus insuring that for a time, at least, those husbands would forget their wives and abandon their little nestlings. The husbands would romp with Lilith, neglectful of the duties of hearth, home and bed and field, and they would love her with madness and be so smitten of her charms that they would regard their wives with distaste and possibly revulsion. Worse still, the harvests would be neglected, the cattle unfed, the roofs unsealed . . .

A woman may forgive her husband a romp in the shadowy forests, but she will not forgive him the sufferings of her children, nor will she forgive the great insult to her own beauty and desirability. The ladies said to me, “Is this Lilith fairer than I?” And I replied, “Assuredly, she is the fairest of women, for all she is a demon, and are not maddening women demons? Though you are lovely to behold, my little ones, Lilith in contrast will cast a dust of ugliness upon you in your husbands’ eyes. But above all, she will shatter the peace and joy of your planet, and bring age upon your faces, and wrinkles, and dim the green fire of your eyes, and she will bring death upon your children and disease and storms and darkness and furies.”

“Ah,” I told them, “men are susceptible to ladies of no virtue and no matronly attributes! They are like adorable children, wanton at heart but in need of protection, and the careful supervision of alerted wives. They will stretch forth their hands for the flying hair of a woman of no sturdy consequence, and they will dance with her in the moonlight and garland her head with flowers and press their cheeks against her breast, and drink of wine deeply with her. She will laugh, and sing and play, and a wise matron understands how these things can lure men from their duties. She will becloud the minds of your husbands so that they will think of pleasure and not the granaries, laughter in the sun and not of weak roofs, roses in the glades and not of wool to be sheared. There is a certain weakness in men that inclines them to frivolity and dallying, and Lilith will exploit that weakness and entice your husbands from your sides. . . .

“We will be watchful, O, Lord Michael!” the wives promised me . . . is this not better than death and sin and age and disease and sorrow, not to mention the harsh tongues of betrayed wives? I have observed that men can endure great hardships and adversities with considerable calm, but they cannot endure for long the smite of a woman’s less affectionate remarks, and her acid conversation at midnight when they would prefer to sleep. . . .

I then repaired to the husbands of Pandara, and when they had risen from their knees at my consent, I said to them, “Glorious is your planet, beloved sons of God, my dear brothers, and fair are her skies and rich are her fields and splendid will be your cities. Handsome are your faces and strong are the rosy muscles of your arms, and your wives rejoice in you.”

“It is so, Lord!” they cried in jubilation, and I smiled at the happiness in their eyes and loved them dearly for the male spirit is a little less complicated than the female and somewhat more naive. It has an innocence, even in paradise, beyond the innocence of women who, even in paradise, are given to reflection, and are less trusting.

“But alas,” I said to the boys, “your joy is threatened, for you have free will, as you know, and alas again, so do your wives. . . . Men are often slave to habit, virtuous or unvirtuous, but women have few habits at all and so are easily led astray into novelties. Your wives, though with child, will not always be with child. They will have moments of leisure. While leisure for a man is a quiet resting or an innocent pastime or a running after balls or a climbing of trees for the fruit, or just sleeping, leisure for a woman is the veriest temptation. . . . Have you not already discovered this for yourselves?”

. . .

“Your wives will all have dreams very soon,” I told them, “and none of them will be virtuous. None of them will be concerned for the husband who labors in the fields and the forests and who tends cattle and returns dutifully home to his children and sits soberly on his hearth. On the contrary! They will be dreams which I hesitate to speak of, for women’s minds are somewhat less decorous and guileless than men’s, even on Pandara. The indelicacy of a woman’s thoughts would bring a flame to the cheek of even the burliest man. You have observed that nature is not always delicate?”

. . .

“And women are far closer to nature than are you, for all you labor in the fields and the forests. There is a certain earthiness in women which is sometimes an embarrassment to husbands, a certain lustiness of the flesh that is not always easily satisfied. If I am incorrect, I beg your forgiveness.”

“You are correct, Lord,” said the simple ones.

. . . “For unto your wives there will be sent from the very depths of hell an evil but most beautiful male demon, one Damon. I know him well! He has seduced endless millions of women on other planets, as fair and as matronly as your own, and as busy–with dreams. He is full of novelties and enticements, and adores women and finds them overwhelmingly fascinating–which you not always do. Their conversation never wearies him; he is attentive and glorious. As he never labors, except to do mischief, he is not weary at sundown, as you are weary. As he is a demon and not a man, he does not sleep, and women are notable for being active at night. And dreaming. He converses. You have no idea what a menace to husbands is a conversing man! But women find it distracting.

“You love your wives. Soon, they will bear children. However, when Damon comes to seduce them with fair words, with exciting discourse, with flatteries and ardencies, and will shine the beauty of his countenance upon them and jest with them until they are weak with laughter and adoration, they will forget you and your children, and will race with him to flowery dells and into dim lush spots–and will then betray you for his kisses and his lusts. Then will your children cry for a maternal breast, and then will there be no dishes upon the table to appease your hungers, and no arms to sustain you in your beds. You will be veritable orphans, abandoned and alone, left to weep among the wreckages of your households, and the uncleaned pots and the stale bread. Is that not a fate to weep about, and to pray never afflicts you?”

. . .

. . . Damon has a voice that is irresistible, and what woman can resist a musical voice if it is also masculine? Damon is all masculinity; he is never weary. His muscles never ache. His foot never lags. He never frowns, if dinner is a little late. He is also never hungry, as you are hungry, and you know how impatient wives are with the honest hunger of a man. They remark that men’s bellies seem bottomless. Correct me if I am wrong.”

“You are correct, Lord,” they said, with dismalness and alarm.

As Damon does not seek a woman with forthrightness, and with sleep in mind thereafter–as you do–he will dally with a woman after love, until she is ready and eager for his embraces again. Whereas you, my dear little ones, wish to turn on your pillows in preparation for the next day’s work. Damon never asks, “Do you love me?” as your wives ask, until you yawn for very boredom. He constantly assures the creature of his immediate affection that never has he loved a woman so before, and how rapturous are her kisses and perfumed her flesh. Do you say all this to your wives?”

“No, Lord,” they said dolorously.

. . .

. . .

“Be patient. For one comes who will have all the patience in the world and will never weary. Not only will he seduce your wives, so that all the horrors I have described will come upon you, but he will bring old age and death to you, and flagging of strength, and disease and pain. Worse, he will sharpen your women’s tongues, and nothing is more deadly.”

“How can we escape such a dreadful fate?” they cried.

. . . Men are trustful, when it involves women, and that is a momentous mystery which I will not even attempt to explore. I do not advise distrust as a general climate of the mind. That can inspire eventual cynicism and lovelessness. But a reasonable distrust is prudent. And one knows the weaknesses of women. Do we not?”

“Certainly!” they exclaimed, positive that they had always known female weaknesses, though the fact had only just occurred to them, alas.

“Then, be watchful for Damon. Never leave your wives long unguarded, especially in the soft eventides and when the moons are shining. Do not dally in the fields and the forests and the hills and the meadows as the sun begins to go down. Do not let anything draw you aside, even if it appears exciting and wondrous and new–and, probably beautiful, itself. For, if you delay, Damon will appear on your thresholds at home, and you may return to an empty household. A moment’s delight can cost you a whole life’s industry and hope and peace. And, again, it will bring you death and suffering.”

. . .

. . .

It is not sensible, as you know, Lucifer, to describe a handsome man to a woman or a lovely woman to a man, human nature being what it is, even on the Eden which is Pandara.

“We will guard our honor and the honor of our households and the safety of our children and the purity of our wives!” shouted the innocent ones, raising their fists high in a solemn oath. “Ever shall we be watchful of our women, understanding their weaknesses and their frail natures and their susceptibilities to temptation!”

I gave them my blessing and departed. They have been warned. Suspicion has been introduced into the turquoise daylight and the silver and lilac nights. . . . In Heaven we are unequally perfect, in accordance with the ability to be perfect inherent in our natures And that brings me to another subject you discussed in your last letter: Equality, which pervades hell.

In Heaven, there is Equity, which is an entirely different matter.

. . . The same situation prevails in hell–equality of treatment no matter the soul. However, in Heaven, as I have mentioned, there is Equity, based on the Natural Law that some men are superior to others, and some angels less than others, in virtue, in devotion, in piety, in dedication, love and courage and goodness. Equity does not abolish law; it intelligently deals with it, and its inflexibility.

Therefore, spirits in Heaven, angel or man, are rewarded in direct ratio to their accomplishments, which are governed by their will. Man, as we know, cannot earn merit during his lifetime on the grosser material of the planets, unless he has not fallen. But fallen men are incapable of earning merit, for their sin has thrown a wall of human impotence between them and their Creator. Only the Grace of Our Father can give merit to fallen men, and that merit is given by the men’s own acts, through their faith and their desire to receive Grace, through their repentance and their penance, through their acceptance of Grace, itself. You know this; it is a matter which has enraged you through time . . .

The saved among men, who desired to be saved and therefore had placed themselves in a position to receive Grace, differ enormously in the degree of their natures and their virtues, as well as in their wills and their sins. A murderer in hell, and a wanton thief, are treated equally with the pains and the uselessness of existence. But in Heaven a saint is worthier than a man of merely mild virtues, for the saint has labored long and hard in the stony fields of his life and has loved God more than himself, and the lives of his fellow sufferers more than his own. A man who has valiantly struggled with temptation during his lifetime and has contemplated all the worldly delights you have offered him, Lucifer, and has even desperately yearned for them, but who has gloriously resisted you in his soul and in his living, is worthier of more reward in Heaven than a man who has been merely mildly tempted by you or through some accident has not been much tempted at all, or lacked the terrible vitality to sin, or was afraid of the consequences on his own world. The first man is a hero; the second man is one who has had little opportunity to be either a hero or a sinner. Our Father takes note of the human weaknesses of His creatures. He will not permit you to tempt a man beyond his total ability to resist, but He does permit you to tempt His saints more fiercely and more insistently because they are men of greater valor and nobler mind. Our Father, as we have observed before, does not create men equal, but He has established Equity, based on the Natural Law which He ordained Himself. There is no injustice in Him Whom we both love so passionately, and you have never denied your love nor can you destroy it.

Were you the ruler of Heaven the saint and the weaker man would receive equal reward, but that is manifestly unfair. Archangels, who have vaster powers than angels, are more in possession of free will and therefore the temptation to use that will in defiance of God is infinitely higher in degree than in the lesser angels. Archangels are given enormous responsibilities and thrones and crowns throughout the endless universes, because of their nature, and it is they who see the Beatific Vision more frequently than the lesser spirits, and the spirits of men. “To each according to his merits,” is the Law of Heaven, whereas on Terra, and other darkened worlds, there appears to be some mangling of the moral law to the effect that “to each according to his material needs.” And that, we know, is infamy, injustice, cruelty, and a display of malice to the more worthy. Greed is the ugliest of the detestable sins, for it feeds on its own appetite and is never filled, and its rapacity is increased by its rapaciousness. It gives rise to the other sins, envy, theft, sloth, lies, adulteries and murder, and gluttony.

There is happiness in Heaven, as you know, but that happiness is in degree, except for the knowing that God loves completely to the extent of an angel’s or man’s worth. That happiness is compounded by labor, for none are idle in Heaven, and there is a task for all. That, too, is Equity.

While each task is approached with joy and with the hope–but never the absolute surety–that it will be completed, its completion, when accomplished, leads to higher tasks, worthy of a tempered spirit. There is always a progression in the Hierarchy of Heaven. No spirit remains as it was. And, always, there is a possibility, constantly reiterated, that as the spirit retains its free will, it can will to sin. This is something the theologians, in their little darkness on their worlds, have never understood or acknowledged–that there is always the hazard that a spirit may fall to you, even in the golden light of Heaven. For God does not remove free will from His creatures, no matter their degree. If He did so, He would abrogate their individuality, their very existence, both of which are eternally precious to Him, for they are of His own Nature and Essence.

. . . You have asked me if God pursues the lost soul in your hells. That I cannot and will not tell you. Is it possible for the lost to feel repentance? You have said not–but do you know all minds?

Within the Republican party, there appears to be a split within a split with a split. There are the GOP adherents, split from the so-called “Tea Party” activists, which includes Libertarians, and there is a split between Libertarians, as evidenced by father and son—Ron Paul and Rand Paul.

At a recent GOP “guru,” Mitch McConnell, gathering, Rand Paul, now in league with McConnell, stated: “Tonight, we begin to rebuild America.” The comments followed the GOP’s grand victory in the November elections.

“Don’t expect big changes,” Ron Paul [Rand’s purist libertarian father] countered, following the election. “The change in control of the Senate from Democrat to Republican actually means very little.”

Beth Reinhard, of the Wall Street Journal, added that Ron Paul believes “the new congress would fail to cut spending and would lead the U.S. into a protracted war in Syria and Iraq.”

As an aside to the GOP victory in the elections, Jason Peirce of Rand Paul’s online site, Voices of Liberty, published an article emphasizing ten films that show “rich insight into the heart and soul of libertarianism.” For Pixar’s “A Bug’s Life,” Peirce states, “The productive ants work hard all year, storing for winter. The grasshoppers produce nothing, then come to forcibly confiscate the fruits of the ants’ labor.”

For Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” Peirce writes: “Libertarian in that it illustrates the absurdity of men scheming to kill men . . . A satire of power, the Cold War, the existential madness of the burgeoning military-industrial complex, and nuclear annihilation.”

Speaking of Libertarian-themed films, “The Hunger Games: ‘Mockingjay’ Part One” warranted a ban from theatres in Bangkok, Thailand. Apex Cinemas, in Bangkok, issued the statement: “We feel our theatres are being used for political movements.” Bangkok’s military leader, General Prayut Chan-o-cha, added, “The student demonstrators, identified later as . . . were grabbed by police and military security as they showed off their T-shirts and [three-fingered] salutes. They were taken to the 23rd Military Circle’s Sri Patcharin base to undergo ‘attitude adjustment,’ according to officials.”

From a recent ABC News report, “In June police arrested a lone student reading George Orwell’s anti-authoritarian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and eating a sandwich, while others have previously been detained for displaying the three-fingered salute.”

On another note regarding “The Hunger Games,” Barry Strauss of the Wall Street Journal writes under the article’s heading: “the blockbuster film franchise reaches back to the myth of Theseus, ancient Greece and Rome, and the very foundation of Western culture.” Strauss elaborates, “In Greek myth, Theseus and other young people from Athens were sent as a tribute—human sacrificial offerings—to King Minos in Crete. The king turned them over to the Minotaur, a murderous beast who was half-man and half-bull and lived in a maze or labyrinth. The intrepid Theseus killed the Minotaur and saved his countrymen.”

. . . There is a strange similarity between Heaven and hell: . . . Each morning my damned say, “This is another day!” But they discover that it is the same as the day before. In Heaven, there is no time. Surely that is a greater weariness. My damned do not attain, for there is nothing to attain. Your holy souls do not attain, for total attainment is not possible. The soul strains, whether in Heaven or hell. If there is a singular difference I have yet to discern it. . . . But if even archangels are not to know its supreme secrets, wherein lies the satisfaction? To know that one can never know all appears to me, at times, to be hell, itself. At least my damned know all there is to know of hell, and my nature. There are no hidden corners, and if there are no fresh delights there are no fresh mysteries and no terrors, however sublime. This condition has always seemed the most desirable among men — and have I not given it to them?

There is an answer for every question in hell. My demons are solicitous. No soul asks without a reply. If the reply is mundane and possesses no novelty — did not man wish that for himself during the time of his mortal life? Nothing affrights these miserable wretches more than a hint that a strangeness is about to appear, yet they bewail — after a space — the sameness of hell. On all their worlds they struggle for the very condition they find in my hells — no disturbing variety, no uncertainty, no danger, no test of courage, no challenge, and no enigmas. They considered this the most marvelous of existences. Once assured of it in hell, however, they are agonized. I have always said that human souls were pusillanimous [lacking courage] and blind, and contradictory.

Certainly, in hell, there is no free will, for the damned relinquished it on their worlds. This torment has been denied them by me. Therefore, they cannot will to climb to Heaven by self-denial, by contemplation, by worship, by dedication, by acts of faith and charity. These attributes shriveled in them during their lives, or were rejected scornfully by them in moods of risible sophistications. They can desire to possess them now, but I would keep them safe and warm, as Our Father never kept them so! So, they can will nothing. They can only accept the pleasures — and the pains — I bestow on them.

In Heaven, however, free will is fully released. The ability to reject, to deny, remains with archangels, angels and the souls of the saved. The gift of repudiation is still with them and the possibility of disobedience. Is that not most frightful? What insecurity! What danger! My damned remain with me in eternal slavery because in life they desired only safety, and lacked the fire of adventure, though, God knows, they protested enough on their worlds! But what did they protest? Inequality, which is the variety of God. Instability, which is the light of the universes. Uneasiness of mind, which is the soul of philosophy. Apparent injustices, which are the goad of the spirit. Vulnerability to life and other men, which is a charge to become invulnerable through faith in God. The presence of suffering or misfortune — but these are a call for the soul to put on armor and serenity. They demanded of their rulers that they remain in constant cocoons, silky and guarded by earthly authority. They did not ask for wings to soar into the sunlight, and the ominous threats of full existence. They rejected freedom for hell. Certainly, they cried for freedom on their worlds, but it was freedom only to live happily without the freedom to be divinely unhappy.

I have satisfied all these lusts of men. Strange, is it not, that my hells, though the ultimate success of the dreams of men, are filled with weeping? And strange, is it not, that they still do not believe in the existence of God? But then, they never did; they believed only in me. They cannot will to believe in God. They see absolute reality about them now, which was their will in life. I will not pretend that I do not understand them, for was it not I who promised them all without work and without striving?

But lately I asked of a newly descended soul which had much acclaim on Terra: “What was your greatest desire on your world, you who were applauded by rulers and admired by your fellowmen?

He replied, “Justice for all,” and put on a very righteous expression.

That was admirable, for who does not admire justice, even I? But I probed him. He declared that in his earthly view all men deserved what all other men possessed, whether worthy or not. “They are men, so they are equal, and being born they have a right to the fruits of the world, no matter the condition of their birth or the content of their minds, or their capacities.” I conducted him through the pleasures of my hell, and he was delighted that no soul was lesser in riches than another, and that every soul had access to my banquets and my palaces, no soul was distinguishable from another, none possessed what another did not possess. Every desire was immediately gratified, he discovered. He smiled about him joyfully. He said, “Here, justice is attained!”

Then he saw that no face was joyful, however mean or lofty its features. He remarked, wonderingly, on the listlessness of my damned, and how they strolled emptily through thoroughfares filled with music and through streets wherein there was not a single humble habitation. He heard the cries of pleasure over my laden tables, and then heard them silenced, for there was no need now for food and where there is no need there is no desire and no enjoyment. He saw that the poorest on earth were clothed in magnificence and jewels, yet they wept the loudest. He was no fool. He said, “Satiety.” [Satisfied to excess.] True, I answered him, but satiety can live only in the presence of total equality. He pondered on this while I led him to the seat of thousands of philosophers, and he sat down among them. But, as there is no challenge in hell, and no mystery, there can be no philosophy. That night he came to me on his knees and begged for death. I struck him with my foot, and said, “O man, this was the hell you made, and this was the desire of your heart, so eat, drink, and be merry.”

He attempted to hang himself, in the manner of Judas, and I laughed at his futility. I meditated that above all futility is the climate of hell.

He said to me, in tears, “Then, if you are, then God exists.”

“That does not follow,” I replied to him. “But, did you not deny Him on Terra? Did you not speak of supra-man, and man-becoming, and the ultimate glorification of man on earth, without God?”

“I did not see God among men,” he said, wringing his hands.

“You did not look,” I said. “You were too dull in your human arrogance and too enamored of humanity. You never denounced your fellows for their lusts and their cruelties. You told them they were only ‘victims.’ You refused to look upon their nature, for you denied the infinite variety and capacities of nature. To you, one man was as good as any other man, and equally endowed, for the foolish reason that he had been born. You saw no saints, and no sinners. It was only a matter of environment, though the proof was all about you that environment is a mere shading or tint on the soul, and is not destiny. You denied that men have gifts of the spirit, often above those of other men. In truth, you denigrated those gifts of striving and wonder. You denied free will. Everything evil that happened to a man was only the result of his fellowmen’s lack of justice. You denied the reality of good and evil, the ability to make a choice. In short you denied life, itself.”

“Then God in truth does exist?” he asked, after a moment’s miserable thought.

“That you will never know,” I said. “But rejoice! All your dreams are fulfilled here. Delight yourself. Behold, there are beautiful female demons here, and banquets and sports and pleasures and soft beds and lovely scenes and all whom you had wished, in life, you had known. Converse with them.”

“There is no desire in me,” he said. “I want nothing.”

“You are surely in hell,” I replied, and I left him weeping.

God pursues them even in hell. Or, does He, my beloved Michael? Grief is the gift of God. But He will not have my damned! For they have no will to rise to Him. . . .

But let us speak of your new worlds, which you mentioned in your last letter.

Pandara, among the dozen about the enormous and fiery blue sun, interests me. Our Father struck six women and six men from the jeweled dust, and gave them the Sacrament of marriage. I must congratulate God, for these creatures are fairer than many others. Their flesh resembles rosy alabaster, and their hair is bright and sparkling, and their eyes are green and full of light. They will have eternal youth if they do not fall. They frolic and work in the warm and turquoise radiance, where there are no seasons because Pandara moves upright in her long slow orbit about her parent sun. There will be no fierceness of storm or calamities of nature — unless these creatures fall. There will be joyous labor and eager participation in life, and life without end in the forests full of red and purple and golden flowers, and about the lucent rivers and the mother-of-pearl lakes. There will be cities of song and learning. There will be adventure and delight. I have seen the red peaks of mountains, and the dawns like benedictions and the sunsets like Heaven, itself. There is no disease here, no hunger, no sorrow, no pain, no death. There is knowledge of God, and God moves among them, and they feel His presence and His love.

Alas, God has also endowed them with free will.

That is my opportunity.

The women and the men are as young as life. I can bring them age and evil and disease and death and violence and hatred and lusts. Six women, and six men. What shall I do?

Shall I introduce a seventh man, my Damon, who seduced so many on other worlds, and on miserable Terra, where he seduced Eve and Helen of Troy and millions of other women? He is a beautiful angel, full of gaiety and subtlety and delectabilities. His conversations are absorbing and delicious. His inventions of the flesh are luscious and charming; his concupiscences [sexual desires] are sweeter than any fruit. Few women have ever rejected him. His very touch, his smile, is beguiling, and he is all that is male. How can any woman resist him?

If introduced on Pandara the women will reflect that he is far more beautiful than their husbands, and that he does not toil in the fields and that his discourses are wondrous and mysterious, and that he hints of joys they have never experienced before. Sad, is it not, that even Our Father stands at bay before a woman? Who can know the intricacies of a female heart, and its secret imaginings? Damon knows these intricacies, and winds them about his fingers like silver or darksome threads. He can persuade almost any woman into adultery.

It needs but Damon to destroy Pandara.

Or, perhaps, I will send Lilith, my favorite female demon, to the men of Pandara, that beautiful planet. She seduced Adam and Pericles and Alexander and Julius Caesar and so many rulers on Terra now. Who is so lovely as Lilith? Once she graced the Courts of Heaven and all looked on her beauty with awe. She has a thousand astounding forms, and each one more gorgeous than another. She is never oppressive, never demanding. She is yielding and soft and attentive. She follows; she never leads. When she speaks her voice is like celestial music. Each attitude resembles a stature of sublime glory. She says to men, “How wondrous you are, how unique, how intellectual, how far above me in understanding!” She is femininity itself, easily conquered, easily overcome by flattery, easily induced to surrender. She has only to beckon and men rush to her with cries of lust and desire.

Damon or Lilith?

Strange to remark, men are less susceptible to determined seduction than women. Damon can offer women mysteries and endless amusement, and what woman can spurn mystery or amusement? They love the secret dark places, the moon, the whispered hotness, the promise of uniqueness and adoration. Women do not crave power; they are not objective. Truth to them is relative. Is this evil or good? Women in their minds can create a confusion, and this, on so many worlds, they have bequeathed to their sons. A woman can resolve all things in her mind and make so many splendid compromises. If the women of Pandara look upon Damon there will be rivalries for his smiles and attention, the lonely male they will yearn to take to their breasts when their husbands are absent. There is a certain doggedness in husbands which women find full of ennui.

On the other hand, there is Lilith, who is always ambiguous and never captured. Men seek after the uncaptured, the unattainable, which, alas, is the climate of Heaven. Lilith is always pursued but never caught. What man can resist Lilith, who never argues, never complains, is always complaisant and always fresh and dainty? Her conversation never demands that a man ponder, or question. Men, I have discovered, detest women who pose challenges of the mind and the soul. They are engrossed in the flesh to the deepest extent, therefore they are simple, however their pretensions to intellect. They dislike women who ask “Why?” They turn from women with serious faces and furrowed brows. They wish only to play, to gratify themselves in moments of leisure. They find their wives always at hand, and women’s conversation is usually concerned with children and the dull affairs of daily living. The women say, “How are the crops, or the cattle? How is our present treasure?”

But Lilith says, “Let us frolic and rejoice in the sun and weave garlands of roses and drink wine and laugh and discover comedies. Above all, let us embrace each other.” This is the exact opposite of the conversation of wives, and so is irresistible.

Too, women are sedulous [persevering] in the seeking of God, which is the other side of their nature. Men can endure just so much of God, and just so much discussion of Him. After that, they seek love and physical activity or their little philosophies. Or sleep. Men love slumber, though women resist it. Man reasons, woman conjectures. Therefore, man wearies first. He is always yawning in the very midst of feminine discourse.

Considering this, I believe Damon will be the most potent in Pandara, as he was in the majority of worlds. Women do not fall lightly. Eve gave much thought before she ate of the Forbidden Tree. (Adam was merely vaguely aware of it, and, as it was forbidden, he usually ignored it. Men are slaves to law.) Damon adores the struggle in the female spirit, for while seductible it thinks of God. Lilith often complains that men are so easily the victims of their flesh, so there is no serious enticement, no arduous pursuit. In concupiscence, men never think of God at all.

I shall send Damon, the beautiful, the most alluring of male demons.

(If I seem contradictory concerning the nature of humanity . . . Michael, it does not follow that I am inconsistent. I have written that men are less susceptible than women to seduction, but that is on the score of sensibility. A woman cannot be seduced by raw sensuality; her mind and spirit must be engaged also, and she must be convinced that in some fashion the purity of love is involved. She must feel the wings of her soul expand, so that all is well lost for love, itself. It takes on itself, in her mind, the aspect of the eternal, the immutable. So, women are an excitement to Damon. But the purely female, like Lilith, cannot be resisted by men, who see nothing eternal in marital love, nothing sanctified, however the words they repeated by rote. A woman is just an encounter to a man. She can be successfully resisted only if she is intelligent and only if she asks questions, and only if she demands that the situation be permanent. Woman must be seduced through her most delicate emotions. Man alone can be seduced if no spiritual emotions are present at all. Damon was forced to converse with Eve to the point of exhaustion before she ate of the fruit which was forbidden. Had Lilith approached Adam, the deliciousness of the fruit would have needed only to be described. . . .

Yes, my choice will be Damon. He will be elegant to the women of Pandara. He will not openly seduce. He will treat them as equals, yet not so equal that it diminishes his masculine power. He will declare that their souls and their minds entrance him, that above all women they are the most ravishing. He will talk poetry with them hour after hour; he will never be bored, as husbands are bored. He will indicate the beauties on their world, and will strike attitudes, but not effeminate ones. He will tenderly entwine flowers in their bright hair. He will kiss their hands, and show his muscles at the same time. If they leap with enjoyment, he will leap higher. He will pursue, and offer them ardent embraces. He will discuss their natural problems with them, with manly indulgence. If they become pettish, in the way of women, he will seize them in his strong arms and quiet their mouths with his own. At the last, as if tired of play, he will lift them up and run with them to some silent glade and forcibly take them, ignoring their hypocritical cries and their beating hands. Above all, he will pretend that they, themselves, seduced him with their beauty and reduced him to distraction. What woman can believe that she is without allurement, either of the body or the mind?

I am sad for you, Michael, my brother. Pandara is already lost. I am sending Damon tonight to the women of your beautiful planet. I will reserve Lilith for later, when the race is fallen. She will convince men that lust is more delightful than reason, and feminine charms more to be desired than sanctity, or duty. The flesh, she will say, has its imperative, but where is the imperative of the soul — if it exists at all? The flesh is tangible and lovely. Who would forego it for the transports of the spirit? The man who would do that, she will inform her victims, is no man at all and is not potent.

In short, he is a eunuch. What man does not believe that with a perceptive woman he will be forever virile, despite age or change? Lilith will introduce man to perversions and to atrocities. She will guide him into cruelties which women can never imagine. She will cloud his mind. She will darken his soul against God, while he basks in her arms.

I anticipate Pandara and her sister worlds, for they are now inhabited with a new race, fairer and more intelligent than Terra, among others. Terra, in particular, has always had a certain and sickening mediocrity of intellectual climate, now stimulated by those who designate themselves as “intellectuals.” Terra dutifully conforms to what her race calls non-conformity. Rare has been the man in her history who was truly individual, and those men were either murdered for their purity of soul or, in despair at the race, became its glorious assassins. In general, the history of Terra has been stupid if frightful, predictable if dreadful. The souls of Terra which descend to me give even hell disagreeable moments, for they are ciphers. Yet, on the other hand, they form a special torment to those souls from other worlds who are more intellectually endowed, and it is very amusing. The men from other worlds have even, in hell, attempted to lift up the intelligence of the men of Terra, to no avail, but to much comedy for my demons. There have been desperate but fruitless classes in the sciences and the arts for the men of Terra, and they have always failed, and there have been cries, “These souls are not truly human! They are impermeable! True, but I always discourage such outcries with the formula of “democracy.” This ritualistic word silences the souls of other worlds, if it tortures them, for was it not their own invention?

My dear brother. In the golden twilight of Pandara I visited your magnificent planet. There I discovered you in a great purple garden, conversing with Our Father, and your voice was full of laughter and gaiety and innocent abandon, for you were rejoicing in the beauty of where you found yourself and were exchanging jests with Him. . . . I did not see Our Father, but He saw me. I felt His majestic presence, and I covered my face with my wings. But still, I knew His penetrating eyes and how can I bear them, so full of reproach and sorrow? It is not my fault. He does not understand, and, alas, it is possible that He never will. He did not speak to me, but He spoke to you, and I heard your voices and your mirth. The green dolphins of the seas appeared to be amusing you.

I have had another thought: When Pandara has fallen I will send one of my favorite demons to her, whose name is Triviality. You know him well. You have seen him in his activity on thousands of planets, and he is more deadly than Damon and Lilith combined. . . .

You have written that you are more merciful than Our Father, for you would have denied man immortal life. You would also have denied him Heaven. You would have denied him the one thing which makes him higher than the other animals on all the other worlds besides Terra: free will. Better it is for a man even to be damned than to be without that awesome gift! At least he had his choice. That alone gives him dignity, whether in Heaven or in hell, and in spite of all your efforts, my poor brother, you cannot deprive the damned of dignity. They share your immortal existence, and for that you cannot forgive them. They have their garment of eternal life.

Even a damned soul who grieves for what he lost is more than a body which expires with the breath. . . .

I look upon the constant striving in Heaven with pleasure and affection. There is a perpetual coming and going of angels and the souls of the saved with news of new planets and universes and the wonders upon them. There is endless laughter and excitement and exchange of opinion and conjecture. Was it not the Christ who said that human ear has not heard and human eye has not seen the marvels which God has prepared for those who love Him?

Do I need to recall to you the aspect of Heaven? Eternal noon, but not an unchanging noon. No vista remains the same. No vision of the eye is static. The only constant is love between angel and man and God and angel and God and man. All else changes, and always there is anticipation and work. Work is not an affliction, as human hearts believe it is. When God “condemned” man to work He bestowed the next holiest gift after free will. Labor is prayer and achievement, and the uncertainty of the achievement. Beauty is always in the process of becoming, but is never fully attained. Joy is in the next turning, but the next turning promises greater joy. Love is never completely satisfied in Heaven, except for the surety of the Love of God. It strains forever, and happily, after greater fulfillments.

If a soul is weary after its sojourn on any of the worlds, it may rest in green shadows and peace until its weariness is spent. Then it must engage in the work of God, which is never completed. It so engages with eagerness and with a pleasure that is never satisfied. Does a soul desire to create marvelous sunsets or dawns on any world? It is given into its hands, for the greater glory of God. The soul paints the skies with the calm and stately morning or the pensive quietude of evening. It colors the flowers of the field and gives the grain its gold. If it is concerned with wonders that baffled it in life, then it pursues the answer to the wonders and it becomes luminous with satisfaction when the answer is finally perceived. But still other wonders beckon it on, and tantalize it.

Was a soul without the love of men on the worlds and did it languish for that love? It is poured into its immortal hands in Heaven and is appeased. Did it hope on the earths that it would see the faces of the lost beloved? It so sees and knows that never again can there be parting or ennui with love, itself. Did it long for children to embrace, when children were denied? Its arms are rich with children in Heaven. Was it homeless before its ascent? It can create for itself the home of its lost dreams, whether humble or a palace. Did it desire to serve God to the utmost while in flesh, yet could not fulfill that desire? The fulfilment is its own, ranging the endless universes and inspiring the sorrowful and lifting up the hearts of the sad and soothing the pain of the innocent, and bringing good news to those who dwell in darkness. It can whisper in the winds and bring knowledge in the twilights and hope in the dawns. Each soul that it helps save and bring safely to God is an occasion for triumph, and its fellows triumph with it.

All of which a man innocently dreamed in flesh is his at home, whether simple or magnificent. Best of all he grows in accomplishment. Always, there is the divine discontent, and never the security of hell. Always, angels and men must strive in Heaven. There is not one congregation, for in congregations there is conformity and the soul cannot exist in sameness. Each soul is an individual, and resembles no other, and serves as no other. It serves its own need, and God is its need, and though it attains God it never fully envelops or knows Him. There is its most splendid dissatisfaction, its happiness. For what is completely possessed is a weariness. Victory is nothing when victory is entirely attained. You have seen the misery of conquerors on all the worlds, when there was nothing else to conquer. But none conquers in heaven save God, and who knows if He fully conquers?

Above all, in Heaven, there is no exhaustion, no tiredness of spirit, no repletion. There is eternal youth, and endless speculation. You have said that love is passive. If it is, then it is not love at all, but only selfish desire or a momentary engrossment. It is peaceful, and that is true, but it is not the peace of death. It is surety, but still it is not the surety of the grave. It must eternally be sought and eternally found, with new aspects and new delights. The music of Heaven is the voices of those who have seen a new face in love and marvel that they had not seen it before.

The City of God is not like unto your city, O Lucifer, for there is no gross pleasure in it, no obscene appetites. All that was beautiful and beguiling and enchanting on the worlds is greatly magnified in heaven, and always changing, offering new enticements. It is never the same, while it is always the same. You will scornfully say again that that is a paradox, but there is infinite delight in paradoxes. Only Absolutes are rigid, and rigidity is the true death of the spirit. But one Absolute reigns in Heaven and the planets, and that is the Absolute of God’s love. All else moves with the soul and is part of it. One veil is lifted but to reveal another veil of an even more enthralling color. Pursuit of the unattainable is the climate of Heaven.

There is no end of knowledge in Heaven, no end of learning. The soul pursues new knowledge and learns forever. It does not stand like a marble image confronting changelessness. Its face is eternally lit with the fires and the colors of new universes and new aspirations and new adventures. It clamors to know. Yet, it can never know completely, and that is its reward. God is like an earthly father who constantly places new riddles before his children, and smiles as they eagerly guess its secrets and learn its answers. There are always new books to read, new wonders to excite the imagination, new vistas to explore.

When you were in Heaven you declared that this finally wearied you, for, you said, Heaven was like a ball of silk which was never fully unwound and there was no hope of the unwinding. In short, you wished to make Heaven a hell, where there is absolute fulfillment, and there is nothing more to be attained. A state of stasis is surely hell, as you have discovered to your sorrow. You wished to sleep, you said, and you rested on your great white wings of light, but you did not sleep. You wished to peer and understand that which is not understandable, even by archangels. You desired the ultimate. Alas, Lucifer, you have attained it. Your city resounds with success. Why, then, are you not content?

Today new worlds in time were born about one of my largest stars in my Galaxy. You will, without doubt, visit them and attempt to corrupt their people. I pray that you will fail, not only for the sake of God but for your own sake.